“This comes down to personal choice and the pleasure of enjoying tobacco – especially good cigars and pipe tobacco – and the individual rights for which our military are fighting,” said Chris McCalla, legislative director of the IPCPR. His group’s members include more than 2,000 small business owners of smoke shops and manufacturers and distributors of hand-made cigars, pipes and pipe tobacco. They represent some five percent of the tobacco industry.
“IPCPR members regularly send supplies of hand-made cigars to our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to enjoy during their moments of relaxation. If anyone has earned the right to such pleasures, it’s our troops, especially those in combat,” he said.
McCalla pointed out that most people have had the image of officers smoking cigars but that cigars are enjoyed by all strata of military personnel, not unlike civilians.
“Smoking throughout the ranks is not restricted to one level or another, nor should it be. Whether they are Generals or Privates and Airmen, Admirals or Seamen, they all have equal rights to enjoy a legal product,” McCalla said.
The IPCPR isn’t waiting 20 years before it begins its fight for the rights of military personnel to enjoy tobacco, he explained.
“We let the anti-tobacco forces get away with spreading a lot of misinformation about smoking and secondhand smoke over the last two decades. Much of their so-called research is highly questionable and their conclusions are particularly biased. As a result, smoking bans have spread unfairly. We’re not going to let that happen by default in the military,” he said.
McCalla emphasized that everyone’s individual rights are attacked every time there is a legislated smoking ban.
“Each smoking ban chips away at our individual rights which leads to loss of other rights, whether or not we smoke cigarettes, premium cigars or use other tobacco products. It’s a right of choice and we are all affected,” he said.
* * *
For more information on tobacco legislation in your state, visit the IPCPR website.
Executive Editor
Gary Korb has been writing and editing content for CigarAdvisor.com since its debut in 2008. An avid cigar smoker for over 30 years, he has worked on the marketing side of the premium cigar business as a Sr. Copywriter, blogger, and Executive Editor of Cigar Advisor. A graduate of the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, prior to his career in the cigar business, Gary worked in the music and video industry as a marketer and a publicist.
Show all Gary Korb's Articles
Reading Time: 2 minutes With the release of their new Punch Golden Era cigars Punch says: “This IS your grandfather’s Corojo.” The full production selection features Cuban-seed Corojo tobaccos grown, cured, and aged by the Eiroa family in Honduras. Read all about it.
Reading Time: 2 minutes Named for family patriarch, Eduardo Plasencia, the Plasencia Alma Fuerte Natural Eduardo I is a box-pressed Nicaraguan puro that boasts a 10-year aged Colorado Claro wrapper. Weighing in at 6¼”x54 the boxed Toro is presented in a box of 10. Learn more here.
Reading Time: 4 minutes Gary takes a tour of Caldwell’s The King Is Dead Escape Plan The Grand Tour. Rolled to a 5”x54 Robusto, this vitola now boasts a soft box-pressing and a spicy Mexican San Andrés wrapper. Watch now and see where the Tour ended-up.
Reading Time: 5 minutes SWEET: see Gary’s Deadwood Yummy Bitches Sweet Jane cigar review! This dark n’ oily Connecticut Broadleaf Corona got Gary smiling – what will it do for you? Watch now and see…
